Enter the Void
Enter the Void Enter the void is a campaign that takes place in the Alceon setting. It begins in 1450 CE. Act 1 ' ' Chapter 1 - The Well is Black Our story begins in the small lumber town of Pinewood. Three adventurers find themselves in a tavern. Galarin from the western city of Sparrow, Aglig Purgatorio Vurakagoru from the Godspine mountains east of Pinewood, and Vehri Furribottom from the Northern border of the Empire and Fradenkalde. A sickly looking boy named Patience isn’t allowed to be inside of the tavern, however eventually he sneaks in and watches the others. The group overhears that the owner of the largest lumber mill in town, Falcio Gilea, has gone missing. His wife is offering a reward to help find him. However before the group can make a plan they hear a commotion outside and go to see what the fuss is all about. They discover that all the water in the village well. A floating hand emerges out of the well, it has an eye on it’s palm. It seems quite interested in the group, wanting to make sure it doesn’t get too far away Galarin decides to get a bird cage of sorts for it. However he doesn’t feel like looking for it on his own so he gives some gold to patience. Patience then goes with the gold Galarin bought him, he spends most of it on leather assless chaps. Little did we know that these would serve him for the rest of his lives. The group explores the Inn the story started in and come across a young elven woman,Sena. She tells them that she is a noble from Stormfast and her family is being accused of false charges by another corrupt noble. The corrupt noble is allegedly being backed by a member of the Iron circle. They agree to help her and she tells the group about a witch on the outskirts of town that might be able to help with the well and finding Falcio. Along the way to Silvia, two lights crash from the sky, one being a bright silver and the other a bright purple. Two monochromatic Devas emerge from the crash sites, the silver/gray Deva identifies himself as Syrabane Sotha-sil, while the purple Deva identifies themself as Tsul. It is soon apparent that Tsul has a female and male voice with seemingly different personalities. It is heavily hinted at first that there are two souls inhabiting one body. Tsul seems to internally argue and thus their body’s reactions are delayed. Before the group can get to Silvia’s home a Peryton attacks them all. The Peryton picks them up and begins to fly off with them before taking a bit of a magic blast that causes it to drop Tsul. This renders Tsul unconscious. The group eventually talks to Silvia and discovered that another falling star crashed nearby a few days ago and that it might have something to do with the mysterious things going on. The group investigates and find a crash site and a crater filled with purple goo. Tentacles and a monstrous horse creature emerge from the goo. The tentacles seem to have psychic abilities and temporarily removes Vehri from the fight by hypnotizing her. The horse monster seems to grow more mutated and monstrous as the fight goes on but eventually it is slain as are more of the tentacles. Tsul grabs a large amount of goo and shoves it into a bag before the tentacles regrow. The next morning the group has made it back to Pinewood. They use a special potion that Silvia prepared on the well to try to purify it. A mutated human male emerged from the well, in place of one of his hands is what appears to be an axe that has merged into his arm. The group believes this to be Falcio and a fight ensues. The group decides to leave Pinewood and go to Sparrow and check with some of Galarin’s contacts at the Tower or Mages. Vehri accidentally sneezes and extends one of her claws, this kills the small child. It’s an awkward situation for everyone and the group decides to bail out on the town and head to the closest major city, Sparrow. A few miles out of town they find a wagon that has seemingly been attacked. The bodies of the humans and horses all seem to be quite mangled and torn open and the cargo of the wagon doesn’t seem tampered with. The group decides it was most likely some beasts or a monster and that they don’t want to mess with it. They continue to Sparrow. ' ' Chapter 2 - Starfall The party arrives at Sparrow, Galarin shows takes the group to his patron’s manor only to find it mostly abandoned. As they are exploring the manor they hear a crashing sound and rush up to one of the offices, they see a figure climbing out of a window towards the roof. A chase breaks out, some pursue the thief via the rooftops, others via the streets. As the chase goes on through the streets and rooftops the group discovers that the thief is quite agile and is hard to pin down, multiple obstacles get in the way of the group throughout the chase. One of said obstacles is a small child that begs a few of the party members for money. Most of the group on the streets keeps going but Tsul stays behind and ponders trying to adopt and indoctrinate the child into worshipping them and then at some point in the future sacrificing them. Time stops as the multiverse has an aneurysm due to frustration. Although they are able to get close and see that burglar appears to be a wererat and that he stole an amulet he is able to escape. In frustration Galarin shouts “CUNT” atop the rooftops of Sparrow. The group makes their way back to the manor and find a very odd looking dagger in the one of the drawers of the Mistwalker’s. Galarin makes contact with an old colleague at the Tower of Mages. The Archmage of the tower informs him that a few nights ago there was a break in and murder. An orb that is used to track the movement of the stars was stolen, as well as two young members of the tower being murdered. A message in their blood was written on the walls near where the orb once was. The message on the wall reads “On tHE DArKEst nigHt. tHE stArfAll will cOmE, tHE AncHOrs will bE sEt, HE sHAll rEturn.” Trying to pick up on the trail that Sena gave them in regards to the Iron Circle, as well as possibly finding the wererat thief the group heads the the inner docks of the city. They manage to attract the attention of an Iron Circle agent, Pain Savore, and some of her allies. A fight breaks out, the hired thugs are killed and Pain in subdued. The group however suffers a casualty with Patience being slain by Pain’s flaming sword. Vehri takes the sword for herself. Pain is brought to the mistwalker manor and Aglig realizes he is able see the spirit of Patience that is following them around. After some meditation and convincing he attempts to temporarily place Patience’s soul in the dagger’s gem until he can be revived from the dead. Unfortunately Aglig succeeds a little too well and Patience becomes trapped in the gem. ' ' Chapter 3 - Rituals Patience is real dead and his soul was accidentally trapped in a magic dagger, maybe an evil one at that. Galarin reaches back out to Breatra Soldshot, the Gnome Archmage of the Tower in Sparrow, and explains their predicament. Breatra examines the dagger and finds it is full of chaotic spiritual energy and the main gem is almost acting like a gate to the chaotic plane of existence Limbo. The dagger is powered whenever a soul passes through it and seems to be able to use souls as a power source for bursts of chaotic energy. Partnering with Aglig and Galarin, Breatra is able to open up a planar gate using the dagger as a catalyst. Vehri, Tsul, and Syrabane rush in through the portal and are able to rescue Patience from the chaotic entities of Limbo. Patience is brought back to life and it is revealed that his appearance as a sickly young human boy was an illusion. He is actually a young gith, a group of humanoids native to the Astral Plane. However it is unknown if he is Githyanki, the xenophobic militaristic space reavers lead by a lich queen, or githzerai, the introspective order of psychic space monks. His eyes also occasionally turn red and he comes quite aggressive for a few moments at a time. No one really takes the time to address this or the traumas of him dying, his soul going into another plane of existence, his soul having to hide from chaos monsters, him being brought back to life, or finding out that his whole life he was actually an entirely different race. Yeah teenagers complain about everything. The group goes back to the mistwalker manor to interrogate Pain for information about the Iron Circle. Patience declares that as payment for killing him her wants to bite off all of her fingers and toes, the group finds this more annoying than alarming. As a compromise Patience gets to hang from the rafters of the ceiling in the room that they question her in. After a bit of mind magic from Syrabane and the DM misreading a spell Pain is surprisingly helpful and actually fills the group in on the Iron Circle’s plan of removing bodies from the hall of the dead and taking them to a hideout to experiment on them. She tells the group that they either raise them as undead, use them as hosts for devils, or occasionally other necromantic experiments. The group decides to leave the manor and see if they can gather clues about the body smuggling going on. Conveniently the issue of Patience’s true heritage is revealed when a group of Githyanki Plane shift in front of the group. They are lead by a Githyanki knight named Drozog who declares they have come to return Patience to their home fortress. They need all able bodied Githyanki for the upcoming war in the astral plane. No one asks about this, which is somewhat understandable seeing as a bunch of yellow nazi space goblins just materialized in front of them. Would of been nice though if someone did... Regardless combat ensues and the group is put into a little bit of a bind by the Githyanki “Inner” Tsul somehow manages to convinces Tsul to give them the metaphorical “reins” as it turns out he is actually a lot better at tactical thinking. Thus the legendary tactical formation known as “Eight Horses cornering a tough guy so he can’t move” was born. Generals around the empire take note and horse training doubles around the land. Drozog manages to teleport back which seems pretty cheap, but hey they can do that. The group decides to sell all the dead Githyanki equipment, which includes armor made in the astral plane and silvered swords. This is a poor judgement call on their part. Chapter 4 - To Start a Fire Thanks to Pain (and the DM misreading a spell) the group now knows that the Iron Circle leader in Sparrow is named Traneiros, and is ranked as the the First circle, one of the nine circle leaders. Pain never directly worked for Traneiros and instead was a spy under orders from Ulfang the Black, the third circle and the Iron Circle member that Sena mentioned back in chapter 1. The group knows that the wererat’s name is Leu-Chin and he was hired to steal an artifact that Ulfang wanted from mistwalker manor. She wasn’t sure of the purpose of it but knew it was a magical amulet of some kind. She isn't sure of the location for the main Sparrow base but knows of the whereabouts of a lieutenant named Egor Slashblast who is smuggling the bodies around the city. The group does a bit of sleuthing around town to try to gather more information about this “Traneiros” eventually learning that the current head priest of Bahamut in Sparrow has the same first name. The group visits the temple of Bahamut and meets with a few acolytes and with Traneiros. He seems pretty normal and talks to the group about how attendance has be dwindling lately and it seems like in the last few months fewer and fewer prayers have been answered. The group ignores this worrying concerns and instead squints at him distrustfully due to their suspicion of someone sharing a name with someone else in a city of a few thousand. That night the group decides to do some stakeouts and look for anyone moving around carts of bodies. That should stick out right? The group gets a whiff of something foul and starts to follow what they believe to be Iron Circle members moving around some carts with cargo. Galarin comes up with a idea of sneaking into the wagon of dead bodies and trying to blend in. No one else thinks that this is a good idea and even when combat eventually starts Galarin still tries to sell it by acting like a dead body. This was mostly due to Galarin doing a very poor job and selling it and also knowing that Aglig and Vehri don’t have a stealthy bone in their bodies. Vehri tries to sneak up through an alley to get a better view but unfortunately she crashes into a pile of garbage and the Iron Circle members are alerted. As the Iron Circle members come to investigate the noise the rest of the group tries to hide (except for Galarin who tries to go around to the cart) however this is in vain as Vehri gets up and shouts “Flame On!” activating her new flaming sword. To no one’s surprise this attracts more attention and a fight begins. The fight is a little rough and the group gets pretty beaten up, this is primarily due to a Patience wanting to stay hidden and Galarin getting into the cart full of corpses and trying to blend in. We also start to see how terrifying Vehri is with her new flametongue. The group enters the base and explores around, fighting various Iron Circle members until going into a small chamber where a summoning ritual is being performed. Unfortunately they are unable to stop it in time and have to fight a summoned devil. Carrying on the group finds a treasure stash and takes the valuables that they can find. They come across Egor Slashblast who keeps his distance while firing his heavy crossbow at the group. The group finds partial cover however they are unsure of how much they want to advance knowing that Egor’s crossbow hits hard. Aglig uses his spiritual weapon spell, which conjures an ethereal glowing weapon that can do melee attacks, the weapon form he chooses is a bow. He moves the bow around and it smacks people. Aglig realizes he didn’t fully think this through. Eventually the group defeats Egor through a clever shatter spell. The group goes through the remainder of the base and learns through notes and journals that the main Iron Circle base in Sparrow is located underneath the temple of Bahamut and that Traneiros is actually the first circle that they suspected him to be. The group leaves the base to recover and plan their assault. While in a carriage ride, Aglig and Galarin discuss with Pain that the Iron Circle will most likely be looking for her once Traineros is taken down, knowing that she was. Agreeing that since her capture she has been peaceful and helpful they both agree to let her go however she must make it look like an escape. As they cross a bridge Pain bursts out of the carriage and dives into the river. Patience however is quite angry that the Tiefling gets to just leave and he also jumps off the bridge into the river. Patience isn’t able to catch up as it turns out he isn’t a great swimmer. When the carriage driver asks if the group should stop Aglig and Galarin tell them to keep going. As they arrive at the temple in the evening Patience catches up to the groups saying he lost his wallet in the river. The group is confused about where he even kept it based off the assless chaps, jock strap, and lack of pockets in his vest. Through a mixture of wild shaping and stealth the group is able to open the entrance to the lair underneath the temple by pulling down on the main chandelier of the solar room. The group fights through the undertemple eventually getting to what they believe to be the main chamber. Deciding that the Iron Circle already knows of their presence Vehri decides to ride into battle on horse Tsul. She mounts onto horse Tsul, opens the doors to the next chamber and shouts “The jig is up!” The battle between the group and Traneiros begins, he has a few followers and devils there with him. As the battle goes on Traneiros declares that he is channeling the power of Zariel and morphs into a much larger devil form. Tsul attempts the use the “4 giant venonmous snakes biting” strategy, unfortunately Devil Traneiros is immune to poison damage and is covered in spikes. The snakes do not fare well, however we all learn that Giant Octopodes make great tank allies. Leaving the main chamber and exploring other parts of the temple that they hadn’t gone the group finds a flesh golem that has gone berserk due to its master (unknown who it was) being killed. Syrabane accidentally makes it worse by hitting it with his Witchbolt spells and he overcharges it with lightning making it even stronger. The group defeats the golem and raids the undertemple for equipment. Syrabane gets a magic scepter that has a special power for warlocks, he has yet to use it to this day. Additional magic items of note are goggles of night vision and a pouch of dust of disappearance, both of which go to Patience. By clearing out the threat of the Iron Circle in Sparrow they are granted the titles by Decem Manus Ian Banderbottom and are given permission to enter Archon’s Knot. Being inspired by the magical experiments they witnessed Syrabane and Galarin decide to make something of their own. The two perform a ritual and end up creating an adorable homunculus. The homunculus seems to really have a thing for potatoes and radishes so it is named Tater. Secretly Tsul also feeds Tater bits of purple goo from the crash site. How could this possibly go wrong? The group goes to fort Brightfoot and learns a bit of history about Archon’s Knot. As the hero Sparrow had settled the city he decided to build a large dungeon to test those who wished to acquire his treasures. The guards at the fort tell them that no one who has entered has ever returned and that the last adventuring group that went in was 25 years ago. The group accepts that a challenge and enters the dungeon. After a few hints and a leap of faith the group enters the lower portion of the dungeon where things begin to become a bit more challenging. They first encounter a wraith like warrior who appears to have originally been from Fradenkalde. After defeating the wraith they solve a statue puzzle that requires great strength and are awarded with the ruby gem required as a key, along with bracers of defense, a stag helmet, and a frostwolf pelt. The next wraith they encounter is the most ethereal of all of the wraiths in the dungeon, she appears to have previously been an elf or a half-elf. The caster wraith floats up high in the puzzle room of skill and is almost able to temporarily banish Vehri to the ethereal plane, however the group prevails. The group finds an arcane blunderbuss, boots of elvenkind, a dagger of venom, a set of midnight sixes, and four bombs. Between the next puzzle the room comes across two wraiths, one appears to have been human of half-elf as he glides around the hallway with boots that gush water out of the soles. The other appears more bestial, Vehri belives that this was once a shifter who was twisted in undeath. They fight off the duo of wraiths and claim the surfsurge boots from the one wraith. After the right they find a chest and investigate it, it turns out of the be a mimic and it’s jaws clamp down onto Aglig’s arm. In a panic he asks the group for help, Galarin makes an offhand comment wondering if Goliaths can regenerate lost limbs. This later proves to be quite ironic. The group moves onto the next puzzle room that gives them a bit of a challenge. A creature that can be best described as a baby angel made of blude mud appears in the small library and tells the group that before they can leave the room they must correctly tell the mud baby the correct order of the founding for the five largest guilds in Sparrow. The groupy quickly learn that if they fight the mud baby the damage it sustains just forms another mud baby and so on, they realize that combat is not the way through this room and they need to stall the mud babies. The group begins to solve the puzzle however Galarin thinks they are all wrong and thinks it’s something else. Galarin loses his shit. The rest of the group figures out the puzzle. Galarin complains that whoever designed it did a bad job. Galarin is drunk and the multiverse pauses to take a deep breath before the multiverse decides to smite Galarin. In this puzzle room we discover a taliman similar to the one that Syrabane took from the ransacked wagon all the way back in chapter one. The two talismans begin to glow when they are near each other and everyone realizes that they are probably magical and part of a set. The Silver Charger and The Blue Archmage talismans are analyzed and some of their powers are discovered. Additional treasures found in the room are a headband of intellect, a ring of spell storing, a cloak of the manta ray, and a scroll of water breathing and scroll of teleportation circle. The group makes their way to the final room where they discover the final wratih, a strange pale body that seems to constantly shift around and seems to have exposed injured organs. In addition to the wraith is a zombie beholder. A difficult fight ensues and Syrabane finally uses the first ability of the Silver Charger talisman and summons a spectral silver haired paladin named Leeroy who charges in. Leeroy holds his own for a bit but he eventually is defeated and fades away. Galarin is knocked unconcious by the Galarin and his arm is bitten off by it, despite seeing the irony in this Aglig rushes into the save Galarin from death. The group manages to defeat the wraith and the zombie. The spirit that resides in the Zudanaichi takes the group on a vision quest where she and her allies go after the Elder Lich Ultimas when he harnesed a sphere of annihilation. Ultimas creates a magical construct that channels the negative force energy from the sphere into a giant beam weapon that destroys everything in its path. This is made more problematic due to said construct being attached to a floating castle that is heading to a major city. The heroes fight hordes of undead and fight the greather Lich himself. The heroes that survive the initial fight with Ultimas perish as they destroy the sphere before the tower can destroy the city of Gideon. The heroes are brought back the the present and to the top of the dungeon through a magic elevator after the vision. The Zudanaichi declares that it has chosen Vehri as her partner. She becomes even more terrifyingly strong. Knowing that they need to deal with Galarin’s missing arm the group visits a rock Gnome who goes by the name Tinker. This isn’t actually his real name but he explains that Gnome naming conventions are long and complicated due to Gnomes really loving names. It’s just easier for non-gnomes to call him tinker. The group looks at the selection of arms and Galarin is oddly silent and stays outside, this seems like it would be an incredibly important decision for him to be there and make...however he isn’t and the group buys him the cheapest arm that they can get. Galarin installs his new C1UNK3R Model 2 prosthetic arm and realizes that whenever he casts a spell there is a chance that the arm will disengage and pop off. He is quite annoyed...